1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup device, an image processing method, and a storage medium storing a program, capable of extracting a subject area from a taken image.
2. Description of the Related Art
An application has been known which uses an image pickup device to take an image with a subject present in a background and a background image in which the subject is not present and to generate difference information based on the background image and the image with the subject present in the background so as to allow only the subject to be extracted (for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 10-21408).
However, in a conventional subject extraction process, if the subject contains separate areas in an image in which a background image and the subject are present, only the single largest connected area included in the separate areas is extracted as a subject. Thus, disadvantageously, the subject cannot be appropriately extracted.
Furthermore, a background image used to extract the subject is required for each image in which the subject is present. Thus, in continuous shooting performed with a constant movement of the image pickup device, obtaining the background image corresponding to each taken image is difficult. As a result, disadvantageously, the subject cannot be appropriately extracted.